Burnout Paradise Remastered Review: Is It Worth Playing?

Absolutely, especially for newcomers or those craving a nostalgic hit. The remaster delivers the complete original experience with all DLC, significantly enhanced visuals (4K/60fps on capable platforms), and a stable online community. The core gameplay—a seamless blend of breakneck racing, open-world exploration, and jaw-dropping crash physics—is timeless. If you enjoy arcade-style racing with an emphasis on fun and destruction over simulation, this is an essential purchase. The amount of content and sheer replayability offers tremendous value.

Completing the core game by earning your Burnout License requires around 15-20 hours. However, 'beating' Paradise City is a much longer endeavor. Achieving 100% completion, which includes all events, finding every smashable billboard and secret shortcut, and conquering the challenging DLC island, can easily take 50+ hours. The game is designed for perpetual play, encouraging you to improve your times, master stunt runs, and cause ever-bigger crashes long after the initial goals are met.

Yes, online multiplayer for up to 8 players is fully supported and remains a highlight. You can seamlessly drop into a shared free-roam session directly from single-player. Here, you can participate in traditional races, the unique cooperative 'Stunt Run' and 'Marked Man' events, or create your own chaotic fun with challenges like 'Road Rage.' Unfortunately, local split-screen multiplayer was never a feature of the original and is not included in the remaster. The online integration, however, is seamless and incredibly fun.

Burnout Paradise Remastered is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC (via EA App, Steam, and Epic Games Store). There are no announced plans for a native PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X|S version, but it benefits from backwards compatibility enhancements. As for subscription services, its availability on EA Play (included with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate) makes it frequently accessible there. It occasionally appears in standard Game Pass rotations but is not a permanent fixture. Always check your platform's store for current status.

While both are open-world arcade racers, they have different souls. Forza Horizon focuses on a car-culture festival with realistic car models and handling, wrapped in a progression-based campaign. Burnout Paradise is pure arcade chaos: cars are disposable tools for speed and destruction, handling is drift-heavy and forgiving, and the world is a playground for finding jumps and causing spectacular crashes. Paradise is more about instant, unadulterated fun and systemic mayhem, whereas Horizon offers a deeper, more curated automotive celebration. Both are excellent, but for different moods.